Jalal al-Din Rumi was a poet, theologian and Sufi mystic. He founded the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, a branch of the Sufi tradition that practicies a gyrating dance ritual representing the revolving stages of life.

Rumi was born in the Persian province of Balkh, now part of Afghanistan. Rumi’s father was an author, a religious scholar and a leader in the Sufi movement—the mystical dimension of Islam.

When Rumi was 12, his father moved the family to escape the impending invasion of Mongol armies, eventually setting in Konya, Anatolia, the westernmost tip of Asia where Turkey is today.

In 1231, after his father died, Rumi began teaching, meditating and helping the poor. He amassed hundreds of disciples who attended his lectures and sermons.

Rumi was married and had one son. After his wife’s death, he remarried and fathered two more children. In 1244, Rumi met a man who changed his life. Shams of Tabriz was an older Sufi master who became Rumi’s spiritual mentor and constant companion. After Shams died, Rumi grieved for years. He began expressing his love and bereavement in poetry, music and dance.

Rumi had two other male companions, but none would replace his beloved Shams. One of Rumi’s major poetic works is named in honor of his master, "The Works of Shams of Tabriz." Rumi’s best-known work is "Spiritual Couplets," a six-volume poem often referred to as the greatest work of mystical poetry.

In “Rumi: The Book of Love Poems of Ecstasy and Longing” (2003), Rumi expresses his perception of true love. "Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along."

Rumi died surrounded by his family and disciples. His tomb is one of the most revered pilgrimage sites in Islam and is a spiritual center of Turkey.

Thursday, 29 September 2011

1938 — A Georgia appellate court rules that interfemoral intercourse does not violate the state’s "crime against nature" law.

1942 — The California Supreme Court overturns the lewd and lascivious act conviction of a man for fondling the crotch of his partner because he never touched the bare skin, and the partner made inconsistent statements in court.

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

1943 — The Colorado Supreme Court upholds the conviction of a man for sodomy and for an attempt. It concedes that there was no evidence for the attempt conviction, but says he won’t get out of prison any earlier with that portion of his conviction overturned, so leaves it standing.

1951 — An Illinois appellate court upholds a psychopathic offender designation on a man with a history of consensual sodomy.

1956 — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit votes 3-0 to reverse the assault conviction of a man for touching the undercover police who encouraged him.

1965 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court denies the habeas corpus petition of a man sent to a mental facility for sodomy without the assistance of an attorney and who received no attorney’s help until 10 years later.

1979 — The Texas Court of Civil Appeals upholds the disbarment of an attorney for consensual fellatio with another man.

1988 — The Oklahoma Court of Appeals hints that all consensual sodomy is constitutionally protected, not just that between people of the opposite sex. Just 15 days later, the same court decides that sexual privacy is for heterosexuals only.

Saturday, 24 September 2011

1731 — Twenty-two men are strangled and burned for sodomy in Faan, the Netherlands. Two die under torture. A total of 96 Gay men are executed in the years 1730-1731, 36% of the total from 1701-1809.

1813 — In England, James Williams is entrapped by a man he tries to pick up. A prearranged meeting had been set up and a third party is invited as a witness to the solicitation.

1957 — An Austrian committee recommends repeal of that nation’s sodomy law, but it will take 14 years for the repeal to happen.

1992 — The Kentucky Supreme Court strikes down the state’s same-sex-only sodomy law both as an invasion of privacy and a denial of equal protection of the laws. The decision declares Gay men and Lesbians to be a "suspect classification" under the state constitution for discrimination purposes.

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

From this side of the Atlantic, the long delay in doing away with DADT in the US seems odd, at best. In the UK, gay men and lesbians not only serve freely and openly in the armed services and in the police, but can be seen every year participating in London Pride, marching in uniform through the streets of London - and in other gay pride marches up and down the country. Elsewhere in Europe, LGBT participation in the military is at least as relaxed. This easy acceptance of gay soldiers is not a new idea - quite the reverse. In earlier times, and in other cultures, it was often assumed that military life and it's all-male environment would attract a high proportion of men who loved men, and so it did. Going back to classical times, it was even believed by some that gay soldiers represented a military ideal.

In Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus proposed the creation of an army of lovers, because men behave at their best when in love, and that no army could be better than one composed of lovers:

“No man is such a craven that love cannot inspire him with a courage that makes him equal to the bravest born.”

In about 378 BCE, this literary speculation entered historical fact, putting the notion to practical testing, when Georgidas applied Phaedrus’ reasoning to the creation of the “Sacred Band of Thebes”, a company of 300 soldiers, comprising exclusively pairs of lovers. Was Phaedrus right? Was the Sacred band successful?

You betcha!.

For forty years, the company was celebrated throughout Greece for their courage and military success. When at last they were overcome, fighting to the last man against vastly superior numbers, their conqueror Philip of Macedon, said of them that no man, seeing their valour, could possibly think their love shameful. (Now, note,that this was Philip of Macedon, whose son Philip II was himself not averse to a little man on man action, and whose grandson was Alexander the Great, conqueror of the world ,as far as it was then known - and renowned for his love of Bagoas).

Looking back some centuries later, Plutarch was able to record that he most war-like societies were noted for male love, and listed some famous heroes who were also known for the men they loved: Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, Epaminondas, and Ioläus (companion of Hercules, and at whose tomb same sex lovers were said to make their vows of commitment.)

In short, for the Greeks, ideals of male were so firmly rooted in their heroes, that it was seen as a sign of real manliness. After listing some of the most famous, from every category of leaders and thinkers, Crompton observes:

This is an astounding record, including most of the greatest names of ancient Greece, during the greatest period of Greek culture. For many biographers, for a man not to have had a male lover seems to have bespoken a lack of character or a deficiency of sensibility.

So, the verdict of the Greeks:

Straight men, with no male lovers – lacking in character;

Homophobia - origins in evil, despotism, and cowardice.

*******

But take heart, Americans. Even if you (officially) have no gay soldiers, every time you sing the Star-Spangled Banner, you are indirectly singing in praise of homoerotic relationships. The tune is based on a an English drinking song, “To Anacreon in heaven.” Before his poetry was lost to posterity, Anacreon was the most celebrated Greek lyric poet of male love.

The idea of male love was deeply embedded in early Greek culture. Even the gods enjoyed men. Zeus, leader of the pantheon, was renowned for his capture of Ganymede; almost all the remaining make gods also had affairs with men or boys. The heroes of Greek myth ere also affected – Achilles and Patroclus were celebrated by Homer for their prowess as warriors, by later poets and dramatists as lovers.

Athenian democracy began with the overthrow of the rulers known as the “tyrants”. What I didn’t realise until I re-read it in Boswell’s “Same Sex-Unions in Pre-Modern Europe”, was that this overthrow (and hence paving the way for democracy) was credited by Plato to two lovers, Harmodius and Aristogiton.

Reared in the household of his guardian and uncle Pericles, he became the erom­enos and later intimate friend of Socrates, who saved his life in battle. His, brilliance enabled him in 420 to become leader of the extreme democratic faction, and his impe­rialistic designs led Athens into an alli­ance with Argos and other foes of Sparta, a policy largely discredited by the Spartan victory at Mantinea. He sponsored the plan for a Sicilian expedition to outflank Sparta, which ended after his recall in the capture of thousands of Athenians, most of whom died in the salt mines where they were confined, but soon after the fleet reached Sicily his enemies recalled him on the pretext of his complicity in the muti­lation of the Hermae, the phallic pillars marking boundaries between lots of land. He escaped, however, to Sparta and be­came the adviser of the Spartan high command. Losing the confidence of the Spartans and accused of impregnating the wife of one of Sparta's two kings, he fled to Persia, then tried to win reinstatement at Athens by winning Persian support for the city and promoting an oligarchic revolu­tion, but without success. Then being appointed commander by the Athenian fleet at Samos, he displayed his military skills for several years and won a brilliant victory at Cyzicus in 410, but reverses in battle and political intrigue at home led to bis downfall, and he was finally murdered in Phrygia in 404.

Though an outstanding politician and military leader, Alcibiades compro­mised himself by the excesses of his sexual life, which was not confined to his own sex, but was uninhibitedly bisexual, as was typical of a member of the Athenian aristocracy. The Attic comedians scolded him for his adventures; Aristophanes wrote a play (now lost) entitled Triphales (the man with three phalli), in which Alcibia­des' erotic exploits were satirized. In his youth, admired by the whole of Athens for his beauty, he bore on his coat of arms an Eros hurling a lightning bolt. Diogenes Laertius said of him that "when a young man, he separated men from their wives, and later, wives from their husbands," while the comedian Pherecrates declared that "Alcibiades, who once was no man, is now the man of all women." He gained a bad reputation for introducing luxurious practices into Athenian life, and even his dress was reproached for extravagance. He combined the ambitious political career­ist and the bisexual dandy, a synthesis possible only in a society that tolerated homosexual expression and even a certain amount of heterosexual licence in its public figures. His physical beauty alone im­pressed his contemporaries enough to remain an inseparable part of his historical image.

Anytus (Greek Ἄνυτος), son of Anthemion, was one of the prosecutors of Socrates. An unsubstantiated legend has it that he was banished from Athens after the public felt guilty about having Socrates executed.We know that he was one of the leading supporters of the democratic forces in Athens (as opposed to the oligarchic forces behind the Thirty Tyrants). Plato also depicts Anytus as an interlocutor in his dialogue the Meno.

Anytus was a powerful, upper-class politician in ancient Athens, one of the nouveaux riches.Anytus served as a general in the Peloponnesian war: He lost Pylos to the Spartans during the war, and was charged with treason. According to Aristotle he was later acquitted by bribing the jury. Anytus won favor after this by playing a major role in overthrowing the Thirty Tyrants. Though Anytus lost much money and provisions during this eight month battle, he made no attempts to regain it back; this also helped his reputation with the Athenians. He came from a family of tanners, successful from the time of his grandfather. Socrates refers to his son's education in the Apology.

Both Anytus and Socrates were lovers of the young Alcibiades, but Alcibiades treated Anytus with great contempt. Once when Anytus had invited him to dinner, Alcibiades arrived late and already drunk. Seeing the table laid with gold and silver dishes, Alcibiades ordered his slaves to take half of the dishes back to his own house. Having played this prank, Alcibiades departed immediately, leaving Anytus and his other guests greatly surprised. When the guests began to rebuke Alcibiades, Anytus excused him, saying that he loved the boy so much that he would have suffered Alcibiades to take the other half of the dishes, too.

In 403 BCE, Anytus supported the Amnesty of Eucleides, which stated that no one who committed a crime before or during the Thirty Tyrants could be prosecuted.

Anytus seems to have had at least two motivations for prosecuting Socrates: Socrates constantly criticised the democratic government of which Anytus was a leader. Anytus may have been concerned that Socrates' criticism was a threat to the newly reestablished democracy. Socrates taught Anytus' son and Anytus perhaps blamed Socrates' teachings for poisoning his son's mind or taking him away from the career path his father had set for him. Xenophon has Socrates forecast that the boy will grow up vicious if he studies a purely technical subject such as tanning. And Xenophon tells us that the son became a drunk.

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

From this side of the Atlantic, the continued reluctance to do away with DADT seems odd, at best... In the UK, gay men and lesbians not only serve freely and openly in the armed services and in the police, but can be seen every year participating in London Pride, marching in uniform through the streets of London - and in other gay pride marches up and down the country. Elsewhere in Europe, LGBT participation in the military is at least as relaxed.

Military Pride

It’s not even as if gay soldiers were a new idea. To demonstrate, I want to pay a brief visit to ancient history – but first, I have to ask, “Why do we have a military?” Obviously, for defence – but what is it exactly, we wish to defend? For many of us, that answer is likely to include “democracy”, or even, more grandly “Western civilization”. Now, here’s the thing – a quick look at history shows that gay soldiers were there at the very start of democracy (Plato gives two gay lovers in particular the credit for its very foundation), and were conspicuous thereafter in the defence and development of both democracy and the broader notion of “civilization”. Now, granting that it is a gross oversimplification, let us begin by noting that both democracy as a form of government, and classical culture on which much of European civilization was built, began in Greece, particularly in Athens.

Harmodius & Aristogiton

The idea of male love was deeply embedded in early Greek culture. Even the gods enjoyed men. Zeus, leader of the pantheon, was renowned for his capture of Ganymede; almost all the remaining make gods also had affairs with men or boys. The heroes of Greek myth ere also affected – Achilles and Patroclus were celebrated by Homer for their prowess as warriors, by later poets and dramatists as lovers.

Athenian democracy began with the overthrow of the rulers known as the “tyrants”. What I didn’t realise until I re-read it in Boswell’s “Same Sex-Unions in Pre-Modern Europe”, was that this overthrow (and hence paving the way for democracy) was credited by Plato to two lovers, Harmodius and Aristogiton.

Athens at the time was under the control of two Tyrants, the brother Hipparchus and Hippias. Hipparchus made a pass at Harmodius, which was rejected.. After he had been rejected a second time, Hipparchus retaliated, then the two lovers got up a conspiracy to overthrow the two. In later years, their fame was such that they were the first men ever to have statues built to them in the public square of Athens, and had images of those statues imprinted on the city’s coinage. These images are said to have become ,as much identified with democracy in Athens as the Statue of Liberty is in New York. They had a popular song sung about them for centuries, recorded by Athenaeus 700 years later. Miltiades used their memory to inspire his troops before the battle of Marathon, saluting them as “Athens’ greatest heroes.” Callisthenes, described them as the men most honoured by Athenians, because they destroyed one of the tyrants and so destroyed the tyranny. Demosthenes called them

“the men to whom you have allotted by statute a share of your libations and drink-offerings in every temple…… and in worship, you treat as the equal of gods and demi-gods.”

With all this praise for the men what does this say about attitudes tot heir love? Plato clearly linked their action to their love, and had some harsh words for critics of their orientation –those whom we today would call the “homophobes”. Here’s Plato:

“Our own tyrants learnt this lesson. Through bitter experience, when the love between Aristogiton and Harmodius grew so strong that it shattered their power”.

Did you get that? Plato states clearly that the power of the tyrants was “shattered” by the strengthening love of two men. He continues with some observations on the origins of opposition to same sex love, which are pertinent to modern homophobia too:

“Wherever, therefore, it has been established that it is shameful to be involved in sexual relationships with men, this is die to evil on the part of the legislators, and to despotism on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed. “

That’s right, folks. Homophobia originates in evil, despotism, and cowardice. Cowardice? But, wait, isn’t that typical of those weird queers, aren’t they the sissies? That’s not how the ancients saw it, and they had evidence on their side, evidence from the military record. The Greeks were familiar with male lovers among the heroes of with and legend, from Zeuss himself, at the head of the gods, who had abducted Ganymede to be his lover and cupbearer, through Achilles and Patroclus, celebrated by Homer for their bravery and for their love, and also Iolaus, companion of Hercules and participant in his celebrated labours, by whose tomb pairs of lovers were said to pledge their commitments to each other.

Gay lovers: the ideal warriors

Is it surprising that some people began to propose taking advantage of the courage of gay lovers in defence of the city? In Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus proposed the creation of an army of lovers, because men behave at their best when in love, and that no army could be better than one composed of lovers:

“No man is such a craven that love cannot inspire him with a courage that makes him equal to the bravest born.”

In about 378 BCE, this literary speculation entered historical fact, putting the notion to practical testing, when Georgidas applied Phaedrus’ reasoning to the creation of the “Sacred Band of Thebes”, a company of 300 soldiers, comprising exclusively pairs of lovers. Was Phaedrus right? Was the Sacred band successful?

You betcha!.

For forty years, the company was celebrated throughout Greece for their courage and military success. When at last they were overcome, fighting to the last man against vastly superior numbers, their conqueror Philip of Macedon, said of them that no man, seeing their valour, could possibly think their love shameful. (Now, note,that this was Philip of Macedon, whose son Philip II was himself not averse to a little man on man action, and whose grandson was Alexander the Great, conqueror of the world ,as far as it was then known - and renowned for his love of Bagoas).

Looking back some centuries later, Plutarch was able to record that he most war-like societies were noted for male love, and listed some famous heroes who were also known for the men they loved: Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, Epaminondas, and Ioläus (companion of Hercules, and at whose tomb same sex lovers were said to make their vows of commitment.)

In short, for the Greeks, ideals of male were so firmly rooted in their heroes, that it was seen as a sign of real manliness. After listing some of the most famous, from every category of leaders and thinkers, Crompton observes:

This is an astounding record, including most of the greatest names of ancient Greece, during the greatest period of Greek culture. For many biographers, for a man not to have had a male lover seems to have bespoken a lack of character or a deficiency of sensibility.

So, the verdict of the Greeks:

Straight men, with no male lovers – lacking in character;

Homophobia - origins in evil, despotism, and cowardice.

*******

But take heart, Americans. Even if you (officially) have no gay soldiers, every time you sing the Star-Spangled Banner, you are indirectly singing in praise of homoerotic relationships. The tune is based on a an English drinking song, “To Anacreon in heaven.” Before his poetry was lost to posterity, Anacreon was the most celebrated Greek lyric poet of male love.

This brief look covers only classical Greece - but the pattern is [repeated elsewhere, in the rest of Europe, in Lcassicl and modern times, in Asia - and prett well everywhere, in every age. More will follow.

Monday, 19 September 2011

Although in the modern world, the Islamic countries are known as those most hostile to male love, it was not always so. In earlier times in the Moslem lands, famous Iranian and Arab poets such as Hafiz i-Shirazi and Abu Nuwas praised and rued the charms of boys (whom they plied with wine and seduced). Sufi holy men from India to Turkey sought to find Allah by gazing upon the beauty of beardless youths. Storytellers included gay love tales in the Thousand and One Nights. Artists like Riza i-Abbasi amused kings and princes with exquisitely wrought erotic Persian miniatures and calligraphies. Mullahs and censors railed against male love, but men of all walks of life, from Caliphs to porters, delighted in it and all looked forward to being attended by fresh-faced tellaks (masseurs) in the hamam, and “unaging ghilman (youths) as beautiful as pearls” in paradise.

Abu-Nuwas al-Hasan ben Hani Al-Hakami (756–814), (best known simply as Abū-Nuwās), was one of the greatest of classical Arabic poets, who also composed in Persian on occasion. Born in the city of Ahvaz, in Persia, where his father was from southern Arabia and his mother was Per­sian. His first teacher was the poet Waliba ibn al-Hubab (died 786), a master who initiated him into the joys of pederasty as well as poetry.

Originally trained in theology and grammar, he gained his great fame as a poet who excelled in lyrical love poetry, in lampoons and satire, and in "mujun" - frivolous and humorous descriptions of indecent or obscene matters. As with many other Islamic poets, he particularly celebrated in his poetry the love of wine - and boys. As one of the earliest Arab poets to write lyrical love poetry about boys, his achievement and influence helped to bring the genre to great heights.

Abu Nuwas' poetry is characterised by an astonishing lack of inhibition and one of the most attractive features of his diwan is the extent to which his verse reveals its author's personality. What emerges is a likeable, if rather louche, character with an outrageous sense of humour, sharp wit, unaccompanied by malice, and considerable sensibility who let no convention save, on occasion, the order of the caliph, restrain him in his pursuit of life's sensual pleasures. In his khamriyyat, Abu Nuwas offers a glimpse of the hedonistic and dissipated world he inhabited: the world of Baghdad high society at the zenith of the Abbasid caliphate.

I die of love for him, perfect in every way,Lost in the strains of wafting music.My eyes are fixed upon his delightful bodyAnd I do not wonder at his beauty.His waist is a sapling, his face a moon,And loveliness rolls off his rosy cheekI die of love for you, but keep this secret:The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope.How much time did your creation take, O angel?So what! All I want is to sing your praises.

(Love in Bloom; after Monteil, p. 95)

His preferred type of youth was the pale gazelle, whose face shone like the moon, with roses on his cheeks and ambergris in his long curly hair, with musk in his kisses and pearls between his lips, with firm boyish but­tocks, a slender and supple body, and a clear voice. Beardless boys held the great­est attraction - the growth of hair on the cheek was likened to that of apes - but here also Abu Nuwas flouted social norms by describing down on the cheek as erotically appealing, since it preserved beauty from indiscreet glances and gave a differ­ent flavor to kisses.

The only woman who played an important part in his life was Janan, a slave girl, but, because of his libertine conduct, she never trusted the sincerity of his love. When she asked him to renounce his love of boys, he refused, saying that he was one of the "people of Lot, " with reference to the Arab view that the Biblical Lot was the founder of homosexual love. Abu Nuwas was sexually interested in women or girls only when they looked like boys, but even then he considered their vagina too dan­gerous a gulf to cross. As he said (symboli­cally): "I have a pencil which stumbles if I use it on the front of the paper, but which takes great strides on the back." He also wrote about the pleasures of masturbation, which he saw as inferior to the love of boys - but preferable to marriage.

Although his fame rests on his erotic verse and flagrant disregard for religious rules, towards the end of his life he underwent a change of heart, and once again devoted himself to religious studies.

Saturday, 17 September 2011

1807 — The Indiana Territory enacts a criminal code, eliminating the 1795 common-law reception. The penalty for sodomy is a maximum 5 years in prison (the 3rd longest in the code), a $500 fine, and 500 lashes (the most in the code). It also contains a curious provision allowing the hiring out of persons convicted of certain crimes, including sodomy, as servants. This creates the possibility of "kept boys." The new code is signed by Governor William Henry Harrison, future President.

Thursday, 15 September 2011

1786 — Pennsylvania reduces the penalty for sodomy to a maximum of ten years in prison and requires forfeiture of estate and prohibits bail.

1920 — A California appellate court overturns the sodomy conviction of a man because evidence of sexual acts with others was admitted into his trial.

1964 — A Connecticut appellate court upholds the lewdness conviction of a man for soliciting an undercover police officer.

1965 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that a sodomy defendant recommended for "specialized treatment" can not be sentenced to prison.

1967 — The Minnesota Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction and five-year prison sentence of a man who pleaded guilty only because police had promised him that he would receive "treatment" instead of being sent to prison. The Court ignores the fact that police lied to him in order to get him to plead guilty.

1978 — A Louisiana appellate court upholds the right of the legislature to set a more severe penalty for solicitation for sodomy than for solicitation for prostitution because sodomy is "unnatural" and prostitution is "natural."

Monday, 12 September 2011

1772 — The Marquis de Sade is sentenced to death in absentia for sodomizing a servant and is burned in effigy.

1967 — Two men in California Governor Ronald Reagan’s cabinet are forced out of their jobs when it is discovered that they are having an affair. When confronted with the evidence, Reagan is supposed to have said, "My god, has government failed?"

Sunday, 11 September 2011

1922 — The Colorado Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction and says that it will discuss a point of error raised by the defendant, but doesn’t. The case later needs to be clarified because of another overlooked point in its rush to uphold the conviction.

1926 — A California appellate court upholds the crime against nature conviction of a man for consensual sex in a car. The court calls the act "one of the most repulsive degradations known to humanity."

1941 — The Georgia Court of Appeals upholds a sodomy conviction even though the witness contradicts the arresting officer.

1978 — The Tennessee Supreme Court rules that a previous crime against nature conviction can’t be used under the habitual offender law.

When the film version of Alexander's life was released a few years ago, it was notable that his homosexual love life was largely edited out. Apologists excused this by claiming that his he was "not really gay", as he was married. Of course he was: in the classical world, marriage and sex (for men)did not co-incide as they are assumed to do today. Men from leadership and priviliged classes were expected to marry and produce heirs who would inherit their name and property. Sexual and emotional satisfaction, however, they might seek elsewhere. Alexander’s own father, Philip, was killed by a slighted male lover, Pausanius. In the classical world, marriage and male lovers were often complementary to each other, not necessarily in conflict.

Alexander, one of the greatest military leaders in all history, was indeed married - but also undoubtedly had passionate, intimate relationships with two men, Hephaestion and the eunuch slave, Bagoas. With Bagoas at least, the relationship was definitely sexual, although the evidence is less clear for Hephaestion.

Nevertheless, the intensity and passion of Alexander’s love for Hephaestion is undeniable, as was obvious to all contemporary observers.

One of them, Hephaestion, was clearly his lover. Alexander, like many ancient Greeks, cultivated an ideal of heroic friendship that did not exclude sexual expression. He carried with him on his conquests a copy of the Iliad, and sought to emulate its heroes. When he first crossed into Asia and reached Troy, he sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles while Hephaestion did the same on that of Patroclus.

So close did Alexander feel to Hephaestion that when the captured women of the Persian King's household mistakenly threw themselves at Hephaestion's feet rather than at his own, he found no offense in this and excused them by saying that his friend was another Alexander. Finally, his grief at the death of Hephaestion, one year before his own, was also--in its intensity and public display--to parallel that of the Homeric lovers.

The homosexual aspect of Alexander's life was so public that it could not be obfuscated, even at times of extremehomophobia. Alexander was a model for other homosexual or bisexual soldier-kings, such as Julius Caesar, Hadrian, and Frederick the Great. His devotion to his lover serves as a counterpoint to the sexual follies and frenzies of other homosexual historical figures such as Nero or Elagabalus.

Yet his undoubted sexual activities with men were no barrier to extraordinary military success, as this extract from the BBC makes clear:

Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great, single-handedly changed the nature of the ancient world in little more than a decade.

Alexander was born in the northern Greek kingdom of Macedonia in July 356 BC. His parents were Philip II of Macedon and his wife Olympias. Alexander was educated by the philosopher Aristotle. Philip was assassinated in 336 BC and Alexander inherited a powerful yet volatile kingdom. He quickly dealt with his enemies at home and reasserted Macedonian power within Greece. He then set out to conquer the massive Persian Empire.

Against overwhelming odds, he led his army to victories across the Persian territories of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt without suffering a single defeat. His greatest victory was at the Battle of Gaugamela, in what is now northern Iraq, in 331 BC. The young king of Macedonia, leader of the Greeks, overlord of Asia Minor and pharaoh of Egypt became 'great king' of Persia at the age of 25.

Over the next eight years, in his capacity as king, commander, politician, scholar and explorer, Alexander led his army a further 11,000 miles, founding over 70 cities and creating an empire that stretched across three continents and covered around two million square miles. The entire area from Greece in the west, north to the Danube, south into Egypt and as far to the east as the Indian Punjab, was linked together in a vast international network of trade and commerce. This was united by a common Greek language and culture, while the king himself adopted foreign customs in order to rule his millions of ethnically diverse subjects.

Saturday, 10 September 2011

Queer men and women are found, and have always existed, in all walks of life - including those which appear superficially to stand in direct opposition to the standard stereotypes. The stereotypes in fact are culturally and historically specific, to distinct regions and eras. Until recently, USA publicly took the view that gay men and women were inherently unsuitable for military service - but some societies took the diametrically opposite view, that gay men were particularly good military material (in the Sacred Band of Thebes, for example, or among the Japanese Samurai).

Matt & Andrej Kowalsky "Biographies of Famous GLTB People (Or who tried it at least once...)" lists an extensive collection of short biographies, with an indication in the headline for each entry if the country of origin, dates and main occupation or claim to queer fame. The list below is a selection from the full listing of those who are described as soldiers, other armed forces, civilian navy or aviation, policemen, adventurers and explorers.

This page is limited to those who are no longer alive. For a companion listing of those who are listed as "living" (at least at the time of posting), see the entry at "It's a Queer World".

Matt & Andrej Kowalsky "Biographies of Famous GLTB People (Or who tried it at least once...)" lists an extensive collection of short biographies, with an indication in the headline for each entry if the country of origin, dates and main occupation or claim to queer fame. The list below is a selection from the full listing of those who are described as "activists" or social reformers, who are no longer alive.

For a companion listing of those who are listed as "living" (at least at the time of posting), see the entry at "Ir's a Queer World").